MAX PAYNE 3 REVIEW

Max Payne, whose name and disposition are particularly well-suited to a videogame action star, is back after an extended sabbatical, and things have changed for the grizzled and cynical hero. He’s got a new look, a new job, and new hands crafting his fate with Rockstar taking over for original developer Remedy.

 Does the third part in this hardboiled saga deliver the right kind of Payne?

Max Payne’s sordid and often violent memories take the setting and story back and forth through time. As soon as he’s got things mentally sorted out, he’s pissed off the mafia, fled the country, gone to work as a bodyguard for a rich and powerful family in Brazil, and hit a new all-time low marked by lies, losses, and double-crosses. Plot is delivered through extended cutscenes and Max’s own glibly cynical internal monologue. 

There’s some dark stuff here, but the game pushes its sensational material so hard that it sometimes appears to be mocking itself, and the transformation signified by Max shaving his head is a hard sell. His motives for methodically gunning down hundreds of human targets shift ever-so-subtly, but the bloody tone of gameplay continues unchanged--other than a dramatic spike in the number of slain Brazilian cops.

 The plot eventually comes full-circle to the opening scene, but by that time the meaning and impact have taken nearly as many hits as Max himself. He’s a flawed hero, sure, but no matter how much pathos the story lays on, Max Payne’s defining feature is his remarkable talent for killing.

Max Payne 3’s story mode clocks in at 8 to 10 hours, feeling a bit drawn out due to lengthy cutscenes that serve to obscure obvious loading times and the incredible number of goons standing in your way. Plot clues and golden gun parts can be collected for minor rewards, but searching them out feels contrary to your purpose, and Max himself is quick to berate you for lollygagging. 

The impact of the action is dulled through repetition, but the truly sour notes are generally balanced out by a handful of standout gun-battles and striking moments. 

Surprisingly, the game’s secondary modes end up shining brighter than the story, highlighted by a multiplayer game type called Gang Wars that stages a series of battles between two sides using sets from the single-player game. Objectives change based on who wins or loses each match, and each team victory earns a small advantage in the winner-take-all final showdown. Meanwhile, Payne Killer mode is an asymmetrical game of tag, which, along with typical deathmatch and single-player challenge modes, rounds out the additional content.

It bears mention that manually tweaking options can substantially affect your overall experience. Aiming assistance is almost necessary for the default difficulty setting in the against-all-odds single-player game, while free-aim creates an appropriate test of skill for competitive multiplayer.

Max Payne still fires tandem weapons with deadly efficiency, and bullet-time acrobatics give him an edge over softer-boiled men, but nonetheless, times have changed. You’ll still be tempted to pull off the signature slow-motion dives simply because they look really cool, but in most situations fun takes a backseat to survival. When it’s do or die against a group of lethal thugs, this old dog’s old tricks just can’t cut it. Grazing any surface during a dive will snap you out of your slow-mo trance, and if he lands near cover, Max clumsily stands up and briefly exposes himself before hunkering down behind a waist-high barrier. 

Certain crowded, smaller spaces can lend themselves to bullet-dodging ballet, but you’ll frequently find yourself in wide-open environments, fighting against hyper-aware and accurate enemies that engage you at range, know how to use cover, and do their best to flank you. As you progress through the game, enemies toughen up considerably, shrugging off bullets like insect bites and leaving you even less confident about leaping headfirst into battle. The smarter, more effective, and infinitely less-thrilling option is to grab some cover and slow down time to get slow-mo headshots, which, like aiming in general, never feels quite as fluid or easy as it should.

Custom-made bullet-time sequences do occasionally bend the rules to give Max a few dilated moments of glory, but other pre-programmed bits expose rough, laughable seams when the player doesn’t behave the way the game intends. You’ll also repeatedly see your cover blown during a cutscene and have to deal with the resulting mess, sometimes finding a different weapon in your hands when the game gives you back the controls. 

The health system is one carried-over mechanic that still works. Health doesn’t regenerate, so you’ll consume painkillers to stay in the game. Pill popping also powers a last stand mechanic, giving you a chance to take out the enemy that killed you and come back from the brink.

The game’s biggest problems simply don’t come up in multiplayer. In addition to offering a better environment for slow-mo acrobatics, which function in multiplayer thanks to an exceedingly clever implementation, players have powers with interesting effects--stuff like revealing enemy positions or making you appear friendly to your unsuspecting foes. The one real annoyance here is the long, slow grind to level up in order to unlock new equipment and customize your weapons. That aside, playing with other human beings is unquestionably the superior option.

Max Payne 3 treats its cutscenes with a distinctive style that distorts images, staggers action across comic-like panels, and tosses seemingly random words and phrases onto the screen. Maybe the intention is to simulate the perspective of an aging, drug-addled boozehound besieged by an overstimulating electronic world. Whatever it’s meant to convey, the constant visual effects are tiresome, needlessly distracting and way overdone. 

Outside the cinematics things look a bit less cheesy, with the possible exception of Max’s gaudy Hawaiian shirt. Densely detailed environments and impressively realistic animations rival the best in the business, and bullets tear into office supplies and human bodies in surprisingly convincing ways. Close-range executions hit with violent, sudden impact, and the gruesome kill-cam that caps off victorious gunfights seems determined to live up to the blatant pun in the game’s title. 

The famed Max Payne is still capable of getting the job done, but he has a bit of a hard time fitting into the framework he’s been given here. Attempting a character study of a deeply flawed action hero is an interesting gamble that just doesn’t pay off, and the single-player experience continually struggles with leveraging the character’s identity or unique skills. So it’s got some issues. That said, the surprisingly entertaining multiplayer modes and a virtuoso treatment of extreme violence stand out as legitimate highpoints.

 It all basically comes down to your tolerance for pain.

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